Friendship Fantasies

Did you speak to a Friend Today?

I didn't actually read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness … but when the movie reviews made the comparison between Apocalypse Now and Conrad's book … it drew on my attention. I was especially drawn to the giant stone images of the Buddha … standing as ancient ruins … where the Colonel had decided to locate his wayward camp. It produced an effect that became engraven in my mind for some time.

Its a story about human thought … and the way we deal with that … in isolation … or in the company of friends. No doubt the Colonel made his choice … but the rest of us probably remember well … how we used to trade a thought with our buddies … whether its about girls … careers … product purchases … or family life. I always found it curious … that there may be so many variances … in the way people bring themselves to view the same issue.

I was hanging out with about 6 buddies … on a regular basis … and it occurred to me recently … to make a note of each different perspective … they brought to the table. The current data on their status … continues to bring a frown to me. Three of them passed on … from heart attacks … by 40 years of age. Two ( including me ) … became separated from the wife. One couldn't have any children … and the wife told me some time back that … he's her only child. And the last became a social activist.

It makes me wonder about the effect we had on each other … and whether that made a difference in their lives. Of the three who died … one was a complete comic … and would smile while speaking and he did that all the time. Another was into mixing booze and drugs … and despite his position at the bank where he worked … never recovered from the nose dive he went into. The third had severe identity problems … and never really adjusted to the urban life … in relation to the plantation that he came from.

The other fella … separated from the wife … had a gigantic interest in science … and would constantly rattle on about science titbits … but his interest was not shared by the wife. After his divorce … he met this foreign student who was doing her masters in wave mechanics. They got married and … I think I saw him truly smile for the first time … after that. The one without children … was married to a girl who was the parliamentary secretary … to the Ministry of Education … and it took him out on community projects that was being undertaken by the political party.

The social activist took a job at a local college and taught mathematics … while sitting for the actuary exams. It took him years to complete the exams … but eventually decided that he'll stay in teaching. In the meantime he got involved in some charities … and would spend hours talking about how society can only advance with a change of mindset. However he viewed people like a mathematical equation and figured 2 into 2 would inevitably lead to 4.

In retrospect I was the philosopher in the group … and brought my share of the issues … especially in psychological studies … to our discussions. They knew all about my visits to the psychiatrist … the anti-depressants I was taking … and my views on creating change from within the individual experience. But we were always polite with one another … and had no cause for making each other feel that we were anything else but simply friends.

I finally got a copy of Conrad's book … but couldn't go on beyond the first chapter. I felt a clamp around my passions … so strong … that I lost all ability to read and draw my attention to the story. I just knew what the company agent sent to relieve the manager … in the remote hinterland … would find. I was that man. Like the colonel on the wrong side of the Vietnam border … we are all stumped by the horrors of war … the debilitating effects of isolation … the separation from the wife … the loss of career and opportunities … and the impact of sociopathy.

I met up with the husband and the parliamentary secretary for dinner some years back. They asked me why I had stayed away for so long. I replied that at some point … a person needs to take stock … and to review his integrity in his affairs. I seemed to recall that it became very quiet in the car … very quickly. His mother was undergoing psychiatric treatment … and her sister's husband was displaying a personality disorder syndrome.

For a while I used to think that things were no longer working in the world … but that's just the bereaved colonel … sitting in the jungle of apocalyptic visions … thinking that he couldn't do more to change the world. That's simply not true. We can change the world. It begins with us … in overcoming our fears of being alone … and a re-discovery of our fantasies … that we never fully understood … nor ever will. Find a fresh footing … and start all over … if we have to. And we'll do it as friends.